Week 15 Newsletter
February 2nd, 2024
A Note From Tyler…
Thank you for your awesome energy on Tuesday.
We sound fantastic and continue to grow in confidence and cohesiveness as a group. It’s fun to hear us have more and fun and laugh together every week. It warms my heart and I hope it warms yours too :)
Announcements
Please wear your tags to Tuesday rehearsals! This helps everyone become more familiar with our now 83 voice choir!
Winter Social: Saturday, March 2nd 11am - 2:00pm @ Highland Park Community Centre (3716 2 St NW, Calgary, AB)
Mark this date in your calendars as it’s a great way for you to hang out and get to know other members of our choir community. The social committee will have more info on details about the event soon.
Next Rehearsal: February 6th
Warm-Up
Dona Nobis Pacem - this was beautiful last week. We’ll now build more ‘colours’ into it.
Songs
Continue building on the progress made on ‘Hallelujah.’
Continue building on musical moments in ‘Down to the River to Pray.’
Rock and roll our carry over songs and work our pieces for the concert from MEMORY: ‘The Storm is Passing Over’, and ‘The Sound of Silence’.
February, 11th - Concert Details
Songs for Peace - Interfaith Concert
When: Sunday, February 11th, 2:00 pm -3:30 pm
Where: McDougall United (Church 8516 Athabasca St SE, Calgary, AB T2H 1S1)
Members Needed From: 1:00-3:30pm
If we could all try and be there a bit closer to 1pm, we’d really appreciate. This will give us a bit more time to get settled and figure out where we will be putting our belongings as well as where we’ll enter/exit the stage from. Thank you :)
Parking: There is a fairly large parking lot at McDougall Church, so we’ll be able to park there.
Inviting Friends and Family: Feel free to invite people to come and hear us and other great groups in the city!
Songs: The concert committee informed me yesterday each ‘act’ is allotted five minutes of stage time and that the songs performed should have a connection to the theme of the concert ‘Songs for Peace’. Something I didn’t know until yesterday afternoon. So we will now be singing two songs:
‘The Storm is Passing Over’ and ‘The Sound of Silence.’
I’m sad we won’t be able to sing ‘Croc Rock’, but the committee felt it didn’t fit the theme. Thanks for all your hard work and preparation on this.
NOTE: Since we are not hosting this concert, it’s important to remain flexible as it shows we are a good ‘colleague’ as they say, when collaborating with other groups and musicians in the larger musical community.
Musical Moment
1988
U2 and The New Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir
Remember those great gospel solos that happened at choir practice last week, totally out of the blue (ha!)
Well, in honor of that night, let’s take a trip in the time machine back to Harlem in 1988! That’s when U2 got together with The New Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir, to rehearse a version of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. The song was already a #1 single from The Joshua Tree. However, a gospel version would soon take the song to even greater heights.
In the video link below, guitarist ‘The Edge’ explains how they received a cassette from the choir, doing a gospel version of their tune. U2 was so impressed that they headed down to Harlem to jam with the choir in their church! From there, they took it to Madison Square Garden to record it for the movie Rattle & Hum. The lyrics could refer to a search for spiritual enlightenment or a search for love. Either way, with the help of a humble yet talented choir, U2 found what they were looking for.
By, Brent Moore